That’s what Bella Caledonia is all about.

But we need your support to move forward…

9 Comments

Jenny Campbell
2 years ago

The overwhelmingly rightwing printed press in the UK is owned by very rich people. They created a press to suit their own purposes, albeit with a direction and attitude that has grown with the readership. The intention was to protect and develop their own interests politically and economically and they have been very successful at that. I cannot see that developing alternative media can be anything other than an organic process, but the question of funding is paramount. Pipers and tunes spring to mind. We should expect the press to be partisan, we just need more of the radical perspective kind.

Frank
2 years ago

Journalists interviewing journalists. Macwhirter’s too banal for an in-depth interview like this, although the discussion on social media was interesting. One of the reasons I avoid Wings is that it’s predictable as hell – and the obsession with putting down Kezia Dugdale does the site or it’s commentators no favours. The reason I like this site is that its genuinely education and not in your face with party politics. Hopefully this is something that will continue through the election.

Richard MacKinnon
2 years ago

Frank,
I agree with you, Wings is to be avoided. What is there to be learnt from a piece of blatant propaganda followed by 250 sycophants typing ‘your the man rev’. But I have another problem with the Wings site. Its format discourages debate. All comments are posted chronologically, so if you reply to a post or someone replies to your post you have to scroll down through hundreds of unrelated posts to find it. Its almost impossible to strike up a dialogue. I wonder, is it deliberate?

Brian
2 years ago

Here we go…the old ‘comparison’ dance. Totally pointless. There is plenty of room for Bella, Wings and many many others. They all fill a need. Wings’ posts are short, snappy and often carry out some excellent exposes of the lies and distortions in the MSM.
For many canvassers pre Indyref, its Wee Red Book was instrumental in persuading many of the undecided to vote YES.
So, don’t condemn, just accept there is room for all types of pro Scottish, pro Independence websites.

Frank
2 years ago

Brian
2 years ago

I haven’t got a clue what you are accusing me of, but let me clarify my words.
There is room for a variety of pro independence social media, like Bella, like Wings. So let’s not close off one to the benefit of another, which is what you suggested. Wings has over 300,000 ‘readers’. Their continued support will be needed if we are ever to become an independent country.

MBC
2 years ago

I’m a bit shocked that MacWhirter is so ignorant of Scottish history. Opposition to the union was always present. It was passed in a parliament dominated by elites, and only narrowly. There were umpteen protest petitions sent to the parliamentarians. The authorities feared riots. Troops were sent up to the Border just in case. A bid to repeal the act of union failed by two proxy votes in 1712. Then there were umpteen Jacobite rebellions, (1708, 1715, 1719, 1745) and wide scale tax avoidance for over a century. (The union brought a five fold increase in taxation). Even ministers participated in it. Then the 19th century brought the Association for the Vindication of Scottish Rights (1856) and the Scottish Home Rule Association. Keir Hardie was for Home Rule, it was a founding principle of the Independent Labour Party. In the 1950s over two million signed the Scottish Covenant. I could go on and on.

Scotland did initially retain a degree of autonomy which did tend to placate things at first.

But increasing centralisation in the 20th century, the loss of our empire (the main reason for joining the union) and endless Tory governments imposing policies on us we didn’t vote for, have pushed the issue to No. 1.

But it’s categotically untrue to say that calls for independence only began relatively recently.

old battle
2 years ago

Let me put forward six considerations that need airing within
(a) the accepted principle of the urgent need for a major Scottish TV news
(b) the need to see Scottish news and factual operating as a strand across a station/broadcaster offering at least 70% of local product and content
(c) the multi-platform and plural “free-lance” nature of contemporary digital news gathering both at the local level as well as globally .

1. Modern news gathering from the ‘Alert’ to the 3 minute package, to in-studio news analysis, context and broadcast (in some case narrowcast where hyper-local content is generated) requires credibility, production values and management. This in the past required exhaustive expensive staffing levels and resources that today is neither viable nor indeed necessary.
In a case I know well the Evening News took so much of the station resources in terms of talent, money and technical resources (studio time and management) that it denied or severely curtailed the production of local content across other important strands.

2. A Six conceptually cannot be a valid option without analysing how it fits into the wider demands of national programming development. An impact assessment of Six on other programme-making/ content making is vital.
While a stand-alone Six does not a national broadcaster make.

3. Contemporary citizen –journalism news gathering should be encouraged without turning the Six into a Youtube News. But the use of freelance digital news gatherers can make for thrilling on-time news content across the regions . Station news editors turn the snapshots into credible on -air packages.

4 International news for the global citizen is important but within the current environment of global , regional and national news agencies plus alternative media agencies there are exciting alternatives to the “our BBC man in Havana”.

5. Increasingly we see news sharing alliances across networks, cable-channels and national broadcasters There is within the International news segment the opportunity to present packages, news and features from around the world including the BBC.

6. A Six or indeed a Seven must also fill the requirement of short smart summaries for breakfast news, mid-day and late-night updates. Modern media outlets must be light on their feet but constantly demanding credibility and sound production values. While news is news there must be room on a Six for features, comment and analysis with a special pleading for arts, the environment and global human interest that satisfy heart as well as head.
Just an opinion: however a couple of talking heads without some inserted cover footage to enliven the talk is not enough & not today. Live talk has to spark & ignite in order to defeat the remote churn.